New mobile phone scam in UAE: 'Obscene voices' steal call credit from victims

January 21, 2013

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Dubai, Jan 21: After mobile phone texts lying to victims that they have won large cash prizes, a new phone scam appears to have just surfaced in the UAE.

Several victims say they receive brief calls and when they call back, they hear obscene voices before discovering that part of their call credit has gone.

While Dubai police say they are working to track the source of these calls, theTelecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) seems to be not bothered by such scams, saying its functions are confined to regulating the sector.

“The other day, I received a call from a number which looks like those provided by etisalat and du, when I wanted to answer, it went off but I called back and I heard incomprehensible male and female voices, which I then realised were obscene,” Hassan Saeed, an Emirati, said, quoted by the Arabic language daily Emarat Alyoum.

“At first, I thought that the other side called the wrong number but when I called they did not hang up and kept the line open. When I hang up later, I found that I lost more than Dh20 from my call credit in less than a minute.”

Another victim said he was jolted out of bed by a late night call, adding that when he called back he heard what he described as “sexy voices.”

“I ended the call and looked at the calling number, which appeared to be a local one but is different only in one number,” Khaled Suleiman said.

The paper quoted Lutfi Hussein, a legal adviser in Dubai, as saying he was also awaken by a late night call from what looked like as an international number.

“I still keep this number. The call lasted for seconds but it was repeated again and again without giving me a change to answer. When they ended the call, I rang them back and heard obscene female voices on the other side. I went mad and started screaming at them so they will answer but there was no reply. When I checked my call credit later, I discovered that all of it has gone.”

Another one said he had received a text on his mobile asking him to call that number if he wishes to “chat and have a good time.”

“Some of my friends received the same text and other received calls. Those who called back found that a large part of their call credit has gone,” Ali Mahmoud said.

Quoted by the paper, Major Salim bin Salmin, Acting Director of the Electronic Crime Department in Dubai, said the department is working on tracking the source of those calls but added that police had not received reports on such scams.

“We only learned that such scam cases did happen. So we now in touch with RTA to discuss a mechanism to identify the source of these calls and seize those gangs.”

According to TRA, such cases involve two ways to drain call credits including using the victim to send money.

“The other way is that incoming calls could be costly. When the victim calls that number back, the reverse call depletes the credit,” RTA said in a statement.

“Our role in the UAE is confined to enacting laws and ensuring all telecom companies follow such laws and coordinate with TRA in this respect.”

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News Network
March 26,2024

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There is no let-up in the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an “immediate ceasefire.”

Israel carried out air raids and artillery strikes on several parts of Gaza on Tuesday, hitting residential buildings and gatherings of displaced people, “killing and wounding hundreds of people”, the Palestinian Information Center said.

Among the victims are 15 people, including four women and children, who were killed in an attack on a house in the neighborhood of Mosbeh, north of Rafah.

Media reports also said that fighting on the ground continued unabated.

That’s while the UN Security Council on Monday adopted a resolution for an “immediate ceasefire” for the ongoing Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The resolution was put forward by the 10 non-permanent members of the UN Security Council. The US abstained and the 14 other council members all voted in favor of it.

After the vote, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wrote on social media platform X that failing to implement the resolution “would be unforgivable.”

Palestinian resistance movements have welcomed the resolution, but Israel’s minister for military affairs Yoav Gallant said Israel will not stop its attacks in Gaza. 

“We will operate against Hamas everywhere – including in places where we have not yet been,” Gallant said.

Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, also said in a post on X that the attacks will continue until all the captives taken by Hamas during its October 7 blitz are released.

Israel unleashed its war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the usurping entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

Since the start of the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has killed more than 32,300 Palestinians and injured over 74,000 others.

The Tel Aviv regime has also imposed a “complete siege” on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said Israel has committed acts of genocide in Gaza.

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News Network
March 21,2024

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Israeli military siege, hunger, and diseases will soon become the main killer in Gaza, says commissioner- general of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

Philippe Lazzarini, who heads the UNRWA for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, took to X on Wednesday to vent his concern for the growing hunger and spread of diseases as a result of the Israeli siege on the besieged strip.

He said starvation and illness may soon be the main killer in Gaza.

"This fabricated and catastrophic level of hunger can still be reversed by flooding Gaza with food and life-saving assistance," Lazzarini said.

"More than ever humanity requires political will,” the UNRWA chief added.

In a press release on March 19, UNRWA said that “famine is imminent in the Gaza Strip, especially for isolated populations in northern Gaza deprived of humanitarian aid.”

The statement noted that the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), in a latest food security outlook, concluded that up to 1.1 million people in Gaza are facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity.

“Nutrition screenings conducted in February by UNICEF and UNRWA show that rates of acute malnutrition among children in northern Gaza and Rafah have nearly doubled since January,” it said.

The Israeli regime has accused UNRWA staff of being involved in the October 7 attack by the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas against the occupied territories, prompting a number of its western allies to suspend funding for the UN agency.

On Wednesday, an agreement was reached by US congressional leaders and the White House on a massive funding bill will continue a ban on US funding for UNRWA until March 2025, Reuters reported.

Earlier this year the US, Canada, Australia, Britain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Finland, Estonia, Japan, Austria and Romania  decided to cut their funding to the UNRWA, considered a lifeline for the Palestinians in Gaza.

France had also announced that it does not plan a new payment to fund UNRWA in the first quarter of 2024.

Condemning the suspension of funding, Lazzarini had said, “It would be immensely irresponsible to sanction an agency and an entire community…, especially at a time of war, displacement and political crises in the region.”

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News Network
March 25,2024

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The Israeli military has attacked desperate Palestinians lining up for humanitarian aid in Gaza City, killing at least 19 people and injuring 23 others in a new massacre against aid seekers. 

The Government Media Office in Gaza said in a statement that the carnage took place on Saturday near the al-Kuwait roundabout, southeast of Gaza City.

“The occupation army and tanks opened fire with machine guns at the hungry people who were waiting for bags of flour and aid in a remote place that did not pose a threat to the occupation,” the statement said.

Mahmud Basal, spokesman for the Civil Defense Department in Gaza, said there had been “heavy shooting at civilians” looking for food to help their families and children.

“There were very serious injuries, some of whom were injured by shrapnel. The reality is tragic, difficult, and challenging,” he added, saying the victims were taken to the nearby al-Ahli Arab hospital.

Speaking to Qatar-based Al Jazeera TV network, Alaa al-Khudary, a witness at the scene, said that Israeli forces shot at the crowd, leaving “many dead” and injuring others while they tried to get “a bite to eat” for their children.

However, the Israeli army claimed that the reports of its troops firing on a Gaza aid queue are “incorrect.”

In recent weeks, Israeli soldiers have conducted several deadly attacks on crowds of aid seekers in the besieged Gaza.

In mid-March the Israeli military opened fire on Palestinian civilians who had gathered in Gaza to obtain humanitarian aid, targeting them with gunfire from helicopters, tanks, and drones near the Kuwait roundabout on the outskirts of Gaza City, killing over 60 people and injuring 160 others.

In what is known as the “flour massacre”, the occupation forces killed 118 people and wounded 760 others as they opened fire on hundreds of Palestinians waiting for aid trucks in Gaza City’s al-Rashid Street on February 29.

Earlier this month, the Government Media Office in Gaza said that a total of 400 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on aid seekers since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal aggression against the Palestinian territory.

Israel waged its US-backed war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out a historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

So far, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 32,142 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 74,412 others.

Israel is intentionally starving the people in Gaza by blocking their access to food, a war crime under the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute.

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